The origins of Endgame date back to a chance meeting some years ago, when producer David Aukin was introduced to British businessman Michael Young, who was then Director of Communications for Consolidated Goldfield, one of the most powerful mining companies in South Africa.
Many assumed that the company had a vested interest in the support of the apartheid regime, but their actions proved quite the opposite. The company's repugnance for the regime and their understanding that in the future there would inexorably be a change in the political landscape led them to organise one of the most important series of meetings of the 20th century.
Later, following his encounter with Young and after reading the book by Robert Harvey – "The Fall of Apartheid", which was based on a collection of transcripts from these secret meetings, Aukin realised the potential for this untold story to be transformed into an important and engaging film. He then set out to pursue the writer he felt could craft the bones of the story into a feature-length film, Paula Milne.
“David Aukin approached me and asked me if I would write it,” says Milne. “The hardest decision was to work out what not to include in the script… The essence of the film is Botha attempting to utilise two sets of talks against each other – one with Nelson Mandela during his incarceration, and then with the secret UK talks.”
“I felt one of the best ways of going into it was to apply genre to it as a 'political thriller', and as a sort of template perhaps, in tone, of a movie like The Insider; an intelligent thriller, which was very much about the politics. I wanted the tension to come out of that and out of the characters. But I think the other thing, too, was to make a decision about how closely based on the facts it would be. To me, what was important was that it had to be rooted in fact."
Historically there were twelve talks in all, covering a time span of several years. Milne's next task was to condense that down into a two-hour film, to maintain the tension and execute a storyline that would make sense to an audience coming to this subject for the very first time.
“I felt it was important to regard it as a story that was inspired by the talks rather than concentrate on every detail of the discussions. These talks were not the formal negotiations about Apartheid, but they helped create a climate of trust. I didn't want to write a piece that was a curiosity piece on history, a kind of sideshow, significant though it may be. I wanted to write something which would be inspiring for the future, to show what potentially could be achieved if two sides, two enemies, can eschew bitterness and put that to one side and sit across a table from each another."
Aukin and Milne pitched the project to Channel 4. By Aukin's account, Milne's pitch helped seal the deal in terms of moving the project rapidly forward. “Paula gave a non-stop, passionate presentation of the story, which was just thrilling to listen to. At the end of the pitch, the executives asked her to go straight ahead and research it and write it. I have to say that Channel 4 have been incredibly supportive throughout. It's not the most obvious idea for a movie, but we hope to prove their judgement right."
Channel 4's Head of Drama, Liza Marshall, was hooked. “It is a story that people just don't know. We're all so familiar with the anti-apartheid movement in Britain, but I don't think people know about the secret talks that took place. It's an absolutely fascinating insight into a piece of history that has remained unknown. That was a crucial part of the appeal in telling this story."
For producer Hal Vogel, there were three key problems facing them in trying to get the project off the ground – finding the right director, casting and being able to judge how big the film should be financially. "It is about finding the right director because that dictates so much. It then has a bearing on the kind of cast that you can attract," he explains. "And then that has a bearing on the kind of money you can attract."
The first piece in the jigsaw was the appointment of Pete Travis as director. Vogel reveals the thinking. "Omagh (Channel 4, 2004) is an extraordinary piece of work and I think the style that he used was very interesting. He is also a political animal, which was very important to us. We as a company generally make political films and it's very difficult to make a film of this nature with somebody who’s not interested in politics."
Milne had spent time in South Africa doing research and meeting key players in the piece including Thabo Mbeki and Professor Esterhuyse. When she gave Travis the finished script, he found the whole story extraordinary.
"It's one of the most beautiful scripts I've read for a long time and a very, very powerful story. It's not very often that this kind of writing comes along. It's very precise and very kind of eloquently written. And most importantly, it's a story about now… As a filmmaker, you want to tell stories about people that have changed things and made things different."
The choice of Travis had a crucial influence on the tone of the film, explains Liza Marshall. "Paula's script was brilliant – right from the first draft it was in great shape. Pete Travis contributed enormously to making it feel exciting – he came on board and absolutely wanted to turn the film into a thriller. Even though we all know what ultimately happened, he needed to recreate the atmosphere at the time – that sense of fear and paranoia. I think he's really succeeded in doing that in the film – it's incredibly tense.
Tackling a true story based on a mass of information and numerous viewpoints meant that for Travis, the job of consolidating this into a two hour thriller would require the appropriate duty of care. "When you make stories about real things, the duty to the audience is to explain clearly what is the film about, what we’re trying to say. Ultimately, this is a film about men jumping off a cliff together into the abyss - trying to make hope work when there seems very little. When it looked like South Africa could fall into a kind of bloody conflagration, I think it was extraordinary what was achieved in the talks."
It is reported that, after the success of the talks were made public, the IRA contacted the ANC asking how they might achieve a similar rapport with the British. The IRA, in turn, are now said to be talking to Hamas about taking similar steps towards peace. According to Liza Marshall, this makes the story even more worth telling. "It's so relevant today, which was another reason why Channel 4 wanted to tell the story. The secret talks proved to be a template for conflict resolution of this sort, and the IRA subsequently went to the ANC for advice. And now Hamas have gone to the IRA for similar advice. So there is a real contemporary resonance to the story."
It is this crucial element of the contemporary that Marshall sees as a defining characteristic of Channel 4 drama. "We like to do quite a range of projects – The Devil's Whore and Red Riding aren't overtly political, but they have something to say, not just about their own time, but about our time. I think part of Channel 4 drama’s job is to make the kind of films that no other channel would make, that ask difficult and challenging questions about contemporary society."
Ultimately, though, Endgame is a story about vision, risk and extraordinary courage, and about how a handful of men changed history. "It's about how you resolve political conflict in a peaceful way," says Aukin. "That's something that is sadly relevant all the time in this world. You need a few good men with good intentions to be brave enough to come together and sit down round a table and talk. You have to remember, it was a great shock when these men first encountered each other. These were people who'd learned to hate each other without knowing each other. How do you get beyond that? Of course all these political situations are never finally resolved by force, but by people talking."
